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Bold Predictions 2012

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I won't lie to you. After my dismal 2010 predictions campaign I played it safe with my 2011 picks. PSP 2 with a touch screen? Sure. Playstation Move will suck? Done. New Nintendo console announced? Boom. I hit some softballs, sure. Am I proud? Not really, but I'll take what I can get. This year things get a bit hazy as the whole industry seems to be on the cusp of either announcing new consoles or coasting through one more year.

My first prediction is so bold they're going to turn it into a Doritos flavor.

Sony will not announce a new console this year. Instead, they will re-launch the PSN as a more competitive online service with heavy Vita integration.

There you have it! Read on for predictions from the GWJ staff. As usual, I encourage everyone to make their own predictions in the comments. I'll be locking the thread up for posterity in a few weeks so no take-backs! Looks like some industrious forum members have already started talking about last year's picks in this thread.

Shawn's Predictions

Nintendo will announce a price and release date for the Wii-U at E3. Price will be $299 and it will ship in the fourth quarter. Lacking any major first party titles at launch, Nintendo will lean on 3rd parties like Ubisoft to fill out the library.

Microsoft will not announce a new console this year. Expect more of the same in terms of Kinect focus and integration.

There will not be a new MMORPG released this year without a free way to play.

Onlive will begin to beta an "Onlive HD" type service that will give premium, HD resolution streaming of new games for customers with the bandwidth to handle it.

Activision will avoid launching any major new franchises this year. Instead, they'll stick with what sells and wait for the new round of consoles before announcing what Bungie is working on.

J.P.'s Prognoses

Freemium Will Innovate or Die - With the freemium model's widespread success comes increased scrutiny, even from casual consumers. Players of all stripes are getting wise to its cruder hooks, like multiple in-game currencies that can be bought for real money. The games that will succeed will be those that meaningfully reward players for microtransactions — not those that restrict access to content until cash has changed hands.

Chrome Will Emerge as a Viable Gaming Platform - Sure, pickings are slim right now; the Chrome Web Store kinda looks like a flea market stall selling cheap knockoffs of iOS and Facebook games. But the recent release of Bastion on Chrome raised a lot of eyebrows, including mine. If a game that made nearly everyone's best-of list this year can succeed in this format, other developers will take notice.

iOS/Mobile Games Will No Longer Sit at the Kids' Table on Year-End Lists - Speaking of best-of lists, the gaming press's instinct to segregate those upstart young mobile games from their console/PC elders in their year-end roundups will continue to fade. More outlets will not feel the need to publish two different lists. Instead, we'll see mobile games interspersed with traditional titles — with fewer apologies.

Sony and Microsoft Will Announce Next-Gen Consoles - ...which will be in stores for holiday 2013 at the earliest.

Diablo III Will Finally Be Released - ...but as a First-Person Shooter. Trololololo!

Erik "wordsmythe" Hanson

Indies oversaturate: The glut of bundled indie sales and markdowns will take its toll. Maintaining interest in indie development will feel like trying to keep up with RSS feeds and social networks, and we'll all have to reprioritize, trim down to focus only on curated links/reviews, or give up and stick to bigger releases.

Newsgames: For smaller games to gain attention in 2012, they'll have to either latch onto or create controversy. Simply being "fun" or "cute" or even "compelling" won't gain enough buzz. As it's an election year in the US, it won't be easy to catch headlines independent of politics in the the US. Controversial games won't necessarily be any good, but you might end up playing them so that you'll be able to speak from knowledge when your relatives or coworkers start using one thin title to rag on games in general.

Gamification plateaus: Plenty of folks hated gamification as soon as it began, and many expected the trend to disappear as quickly as it appeared. But it's not going to blink out of existence. Rather, it's going to move like any other social trend, becoming more popular with less trendy groups — meaning gamification is going to catch on more with soccer moms and middle managers of boring companies. In some places, that could just mean modest improvements on goal-setting and feedback. In others, it could mean a return of a series of cliches from Glengarry Glen Ross.

Charlie "TheWanderer" Hall

Zynga Catches Fire From The Inside Out - There are several possible scenarios I can imagine this billion dollar giant imploding from. First, there's some kind of SEC trouble, some overstatement of this or understatement of that. If that happens, then someone goes to jail and the rats abandon the sinking ship. Second, there's the human relations nightmare that ends up in civil court. They've already overstepped once and got a bit burned. If this happens the company goes sour, but since their customers have little to no brand identification with "Zynga" the company, the IP, which they do know, sells well to other gaming concerns. Zynga ownership comes out smelling like a rose. My bias is large here, but I just don't trust them.

OnLive Gets Bought Out - AT&T, already an investor in the company, doubles down. They then take a hard left and lunge for Nintendo's jugular. Seeing weekness and before their next console can even get any attention in the media at large, AT&T waves their e-peen around ushering in the post-console era. Their color is white like Nintendo's, 50% child-focused, and heavy on the touch and waggle. Piggybacking on an unlimited data plan with a monstrous monthly fee, they promise and deliver AAA games anywhere. Their cloud-only strategy, iOS integration, and thousands of miles of bandwidth support it. Hard line, in home connections continue to work okay, but mobile reception is still sh*t. In 2013 the gambit fails taking OnLive with it.

Board Game Revolution - Something snaps with the old gaurd and a traditional board game springs forth on the dinner tables of America with integral, inviolate tablet integration. It is something engaging that captures the minds of old-school wargamers as well as children.

Games Meet Politics - In this hotly contested election year there is more advertising than ever in the game space. On Facebook, in MMOs, there is a heated race to capture the votes of gamers. It all goes sour when someone plants the wrong ad in the wrong game, and there is a slew of attack ads where gamers are villainized and caught in the middle. Eventually it blows over, and nothing comes of it but a Twitter-rage filled fury of "email your senator"-ish bluster. Obama wins in a squeaker. On page two there is a bit of a blowback towards the makers of Bioshock: Infinite. They get too close to the flame of American history as understood by those who misread it regularly. They become the topic of a few immigration debates on the floor and much lol'd at Fox commenters.

Christos "CY" Reid

Mojang's Cobalt and Scrolls do not perform well - Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that neither game is even going to touch the level of popularity Minecraft experienced, but from what we've seen, Cobalt is a decent platform-shooter hindered by overly complex and badly thought-out controls, and Scrolls is simply a CCG with the looks of a Dragon Age Flash title. I think their overconfidence in their IPs running against the confusion or cynicism of those waiting to experience them is going to hurt.

World of Warcraft will become unrecognisable - Having just come back after a break since mid-Burning Crusade, it's clear that with Pandaria heading towards our computers, the most popular MMO in the world is shifting rapidly towards becoming more accessible, more open to microtransactions, and less like the hardcore screaming-on-vent experience it started out as. What this will do to its client base seems simple - out go the old, in come the new/young.

Non-Rabbit Julian's Predictions

The Indie Crystal Ball:Fez and Monaco will actually get released this year. And it's not like I already predicted that last year. Most of the reviews of Dear Esther will, in some way or another, debate the question whether this experience constitutes a game or not. "This game is 'Minecraft meets [insert game/genre]'" is a description we'll be reading and hearing more often.

Poof: Social games are here to stay, but this year we're going to see some companies fold or at least shrink notably. Turns out that, surprisingly enough, the growth potential of the market is not endless.

Been there, done that #1: It's been more than 10 years since Nintendo introduced a new major IP with Pikmin. (I'm not really counting software like Wii Sports/Fit/Party here since they don't have a specific universe, narrative, and identity: It's about generic Miis being integrated into mini-games.) While they surely know how to innovate within existing franchises, I wouldn't mind exploring a completely new world for a change. The Wii U line-up to be shown before and at E3 2012 probably won't deliver on that though. Nintendo will also admit that they were never quite able to figure out what to do with the Wii Vitality sensor.

Been there, done that #2: Activision will announce the return of Guitar Hero.

Captain Ob(li)vious: 99 percent of the people who threw temper tantrums about Diablo III featuring an RMT auction house and requiring the user to be online all the time will get in line on launch day. Quite the daring prediction, I know. Also, I'm guessing the game will ship in March.

Allen "Pyroman" Cook

Apple with open the AirVideo spec to device manufacturers, with an eye on turning the iPad into a viable home gaming system.

The big three of the next gen of consoles will be Microsoft, Nintendo and Apple. Sony won't show up until it's way too late to matter.

Microsoft's next console will focus on digital distribution, and more importantly they will fix XBL Indie Games so it can more directly compete with the various App Stores that are popping up all over the place.

Games that require specialized peripherals will continue to succeed, despite the music genre implosion.

OnLive will announce their integration with a major digital distribution service.

Cory "Demiurge" Banks

Apple Targets Consoles With New TVs - Not at launch, but by the end of the year the House That Steve Built will actually, honest-to-God take on the big 3 with an app store. We already know there are Apple TVs coming with iTunes integration, so it's not a stretch. The controller? Your existing iOS devices. Get ready for Tiny Wings 2 on your TV.

More Kinect in 2012 - It's selling gangbusters, even without significant 3rd party support. That will change, however, when Activision announces a major Kinect title at E3 from one of its big development house. Outside of optional support in AAA titles, Sony's Move will sit still.

Diablo 3 Becomes Top-Selling Title of 2012 - Just because I was wrong last year doesn't mean I'll be wrong this year. Diablo 3 will sell more than any other title, including console titans. Why not?

The Old Republic Starts Feeling Old - First, EA will announce that its shipped record numbers of SWTOR and generated huge subscription numbers (whatever number it takes to justify $150 million in development costs from BioWare to shareholders). Then, as the months creep in, subscription levels will drop. You'll see excitement when BioWare announces its first expansion at E3, but even with a full dev team working on it, it won't ship until next year. It'll be a shame, since SWTOR is the best MMO to come out in years.

WoW Will Not Go F2P - Ever. But Mists of Pandara will be the lowest-selling expansion yet.

Wii U Will Not Cost U Much - After the 3DS pricing error, Nintendo will cut features to bring the new Wii down to $199, if not cheaper. Should be easy to do, since they've hardly announced any features anyway. There still won't be much software support for launch, however, and Nintendo will scramble to get big third party publishers to release early.

That's all I've got for now. Kind of hardware heavy, but oh well.

Sean "Elysium Sands

XTV -- Xbox will announce plans to incorporate Xbox and Kinect technology integrated into a television as part of their next gen plans.

SWTOR clears 3 Million -- By end of 2012 Star Wars: The Old Republic will clear 3 million users.

The Three Box -- Valve will announce and release a pack akin to the Orange Box that will include Left4Dead 3, Portal 3 & HL2 Ep3

F2P -- No plans are announced in 2012 to move World of WarCraft or SWTOR to a free to play model.

Julian "rabbit" Murdoch

1: Wii U launches with the ability for two controllers. We don't care very much.

2: The new Xbox is officially announced, and Microsoft aggressively
pursues the inclusion of basic Xbox functionality in other devices
(ala Airplay), like TVs.

3: Diablo 3, while selling very well, fails to get the kind of "still
playing it 3 months later" legs that gamers expect.

4: A major successful release comes out exclusively for Native Client.

5: We'll see a major successful iOS game get the boardgame treatment,
not the other way around.

Colleen "momgamer" Hannon

Mobile Gaming and AAA Gaming Will Continue to Blend: With the release of classics like Final Fantasy III (and the rumored rest of the series) on the iOS devices, the line between tablets/phones and big disk games will continue to blur.

WiiU is going to show great potential, but choke on content: Once they get gamers past the rumored painfully high list price, they're going to have to get game developers to deal with a whole new control model. It will be a painful, spotty mess for at least the whole first year as companies scrabble like mice in a Mason jar to figure out how to work old-school keyboard and controller control schemes intelligently with the tablet interface.

Crossposted from the other thread so I can make sure to find it again next year when it's time to look back and see how wrong I was:

Prediction: Assuming that GOTY tallying works the same way next year as this year, Saints Row 3 will be GWJ's 2011 Game of 2012.

Prediction: This is the year that Japanese games come back in a big way, critically if not necessarily sales-wise. The strength of the yen vs. the dollar leads to more Japanese devs focusing on their home territory first and foremost, with American ports coming later if at all. The end result will be a wave of creative weirdness not seen since the PS2 era.

Prediction: The WiiU is DOA. The Nintendo faithful will turn out as always, but that niche is ever-shrinking, and meanwhile the casual market is too busy being disappointed in their new Kinects to buy a new machine to be disappointed with.

Prediction: Full console announcement with deets from Microsoft, evasive weirdness and leaks of suspect reliability galore from Sony. No home console release from either company in calendar year 2012.

Prediction: GTA V meets sales expectations and releases to generally good Day One reviews, but the buzz about the game becomes increasingly negative as the weeks wear on. It will be the classic case of strong opening weekend, short tail.

Prediction: This is finally the year for Diablo III. I know that predicting that a game will come out when it's supposed to is not much of a prediction, but this is Blizzard. I think this one plays.

Prediction: The second great fighting game boom is dead. The niche audience that will actually put up with the oversaturation and sequel fatigue will prove too small to support the current release schedule.

And my double-or-nothing from last year: There will be more terrible-ass plot-required vehicle sequences in Mass Effect 3.

While [Nintendo] surely know how to innovate within existing franchises....

Where has it been definitively stated that Apple's making a TV? I've seen a lot of speculation, usually followed by the myriad of reasons why it doesn't make sense for them to enter that market, especially since the Apple TV is so cheap and easy (if not feature lacking). Not to say they wouldn't, Apple will try whatever they want and they have the cash to back it up. I'd just like to read more about it.

Bold Prediction: Coldstream will attempt to not buy any new games while his pile remains. He will fail miserably, starting when Diablo III or Guild Wars 2 arrives, whichever happens first.

Bold Prediction: Recognising his charm, wit, and certain je ne sais quoi, Coldstream will become a semi-regular on the Conference Call. He will have his own section called "How to fix the burning sensation caused by what you've been playing with this week."

Bold Prediction: Gamers with Jobs will undergo a crisis of identity, as some of the old hands in the forums move on and new faces arrive. The Powers That Be will become fatigued, and will take a summer break of several weeks from podcasting.

Bold Prediction: Cory 'Demiurge' Banks will, in what Penny Arcade will immortalise as the greatest marketing effort of all time, reveal himself as a plant, and begin shilling Grate Cloths 4 U with Litle Monies!!!!!!!

Bold Prediction: Microsoft will announce their new console at the end of the year, with an arrival estimate of November 2013. It will be capable of true 1080P, have upgraded RAM, but will still have a conventional (non-SSD) hard-drive. They will bet heavily on digital distribution for the next generation.

Bold Prediction: Sony will intimate, but not formally announce, the launch of a new console. The hardware will be excellent, but they'll have a public-relations SNAFU the likes of which the video game industry has never before seen.

Bold Prediction: Nintendo will release their Wii U to huge excitement from people who are unaware that gaming exists beyond Mario, Metroid, and sports games.

Bold Prediction: Coldstream will be revealed to have the prognostic capabilities of a ham sandwich.

Jonman wrote:

Now that I think about it, I've got a rubber leg at home - maybe I'll try this out on the wife.

WiiU - $299 w/ a casual pack-in game will release in North America on Sunday, November 18th, 2012.

Darksiders 2 will be a WiiU launch title, despite being released months earlier on other platforms. Many other ports people don't expect now will happen as Vigil demonstrated already it took 2 people less than 5 weeks to get the port running. Not many people will care about the 3rd party support because it's a Nintendo console and all that does and doesn't come with that.

I will not care about what the next Sony and Microsoft consoles will offer when announced at E3 to be launched in 2013. They may try to imitate the WiiU tablet in some form, but more likely will go for further motion integration on top of keeping their traditional controllers and call it a day.

Half-Life 2 Episode 3 finally gets officially teased/ARG'ed, but most likely as Half-Life 3. I wil not follow the ARG, as that stuff is just too intensive to bother.

The Last Guardian will release to major critical fanfare and modest commercial success.

X-COM will be better than most expect in X-COM-y ways they don't expect, but will suffer as an FPS, thus failing.

Bold Prediction: SWTOR will surpass WoW's North American userbase in 2012

Bold Prediction: An official Android gaming network, similar to Xbox Live will be introduced by Google, tied to the Google user account. This will also work across the Chrome platform, and will allow real multiplayer games to flourish on the platform.

Bold Prediction: Nintendo's WiiU will be released to confusion, dismay, and poor critical reception. It will still be the most demanded console come the Holiday season, and will be in short supply, leading to a pepper spray riot on Black Friday.

Bold Prediction: The PS Vita will have critical success, an extraordinary launch lineup, and will flop terribly.

Bold Prediction: the 3DS will continue to pick up speed, even as 3D gaming begins to die a slow death in other formats (3DTV, etc.)

Bold Prediction: Sony will have yet another security disaster, resulting in millions of compromised accounts.

Bold Prediction: Microsoft will begin talks with EA/Bioware to launch a version of SWTOR on the nextgen Xbox as a flagship title.

WiiU - $299 w/ a casual pack-in game will release in North America on Sunday, November 18th, 2012.

That pack-in game will be a mini-game collection set on Wuhu Island. At least one of the games will involve the player with the tablet playing AR spotter for the player with the TV and Wiimote.

Titles within the launch window will include:

First-Party:

A new 3D Mario game developed by the Mario Galaxy 1 team. They've been awfully quiet since 2007. My best guess is that the central theme and gimmick is time.

Smash Bros. WiiU and Smash Bros. 3DS with some kind of cross-platform gameplay. It will be along the lines of persistent unlocks with a single shared character rather than simultaneous multiplayer.

Pikmin 3. It's been three years since this team released a game (New Super Mario Bros. Wii), so they're obviously up to something big.

Possibly Big Brain Academy WiiU.

A successor to Wii Fit Plus, also set on Wuhu Island. It will feature additional exercises and mini-games in the form of DLC.

Also, something from Retro Studios. They had the Donkey Kong franchise most recently, but they were the Metroid kings for a long time. After the lackluster response to Other M, they might have another Metroid up their sleeves, but, if so, it won't be ready at launch.

Third-Party:

Darksiders 2

Dragon Quest X

Ninja Gaiden 3

Madden 13 and all the other sports franchises

Ghost Recon Future Soldier

Some kind of Battlefield 3 director's cut featuring all the DLC and a bonus feature like 32 or 64 player multiplayer

A game from Atlus, possibly Trauma Team 2 but most likely a port of whatever their latest 3DS game is

2012 will be a strong year for strategy games. I expect the new Zerg expansion will reinvigorate the Starcraft 2 scene, and that Bioware's Command & Conquer Generals will attract Battlefield and Call of Duty fans who may not have played much RTS in the past. I foresee a big Civilization V expansion, and based on rumors I think we will see another Company of Heroes release. Finally, I predict Creative Assembly announces their latest Total War game, which will be either Rome 2 or a Civil War game. (That prediction is based on the upcoming "Fall of the Samurai" campaign, which features ironclads, machine guns, etc.

Microsoft will try and cash in on their XBLA titles by offering more of them on Games for Windows. The main selling point over Steam will be price and gamerscore achievements. This effort will be only partly successful.

The Old Republic's popularity will fade by holiday season 2012, but there will still be 750K-1 million dedicated subs.

Define "launch window". Lovely list, but that kinda leaves them high and dry for year two. However, I can't see why most of those titles wouldn't be out within the first year or two of the system.

First three months, so Nov. 18th to Feb. 18th. Third party titles will all be day one, either day one for the console or day one of their respective releases.

And I don't think it leaves them high and dry for year two. They've still got plenty of franchises to work with. I just went through the list of Nintendo development studios, looked at who works on what and how long it'd been since something was released by them.

WiiU - $299 w/ a casual pack-in game will release in North America on Sunday, November 18th, 2012.

That pack-in game will be a mini-game collection set on Wuhu Island. At least one of the games will involve the player with the tablet playing AR spotter for the player with the TV and Wiimote.

Titles within the launch window will include:

First-Party:

A new 3D Mario game developed by the Mario Galaxy 1 team. They've been awfully quiet since 2007. My best guess is that the central theme and gimmick is time.

Smash Bros. WiiU and Smash Bros. 3DS with some kind of cross-platform gameplay. It will be along the lines of persistent unlocks with a single shared character rather than simultaneous multiplayer.

Pikmin 3. It's been three years since this team released a game (New Super Mario Bros. Wii), so they're obviously up to something big.

Possibly Big Brain Academy WiiU.

A successor to Wii Fit Plus, also set on Wuhu Island. It will feature additional exercises and mini-games in the form of DLC.

Also, something from Retro Studios. They had the Donkey Kong franchise most recently, but they were the Metroid kings for a long time. After the lackluster response to Other M, they might have another Metroid up their sleeves, but, if so, it won't be ready at launch.

Third-Party:

Darksiders 2

Dragon Quest X

Ninja Gaiden 3

Madden 13 and all the other sports franchises

Ghost Recon Future Soldier

Some kind of Battlefield 3 director's cut featuring all the DLC and a bonus feature like 32 or 64 player multiplayer

A game from Atlus, possibly Trauma Team 2 but most likely a port of whatever their latest 3DS game is

Call of Duty 9

A metric ton of licensed movie and cartoon tie-ins.

Stop stealing my thoughts! I like your first party list, but find it very hard to imagine Smash Bros will appear at launch. I had typed up what I thought the pack in would be (it is what you say) in another thread and realized it was in the wrong place.
I do wonder if Retro will bring anything to market for launch. I've gotta believe Nintendo really wants them to get something out there and it's been a good wait, with their only other credit since DKCR being some classic track modeling in MK7.

I'd add we'll likely see another Rabbids game (after a much need break. 1 was fun, 2 was ok 3 was getting old) and a Just Dance game, because that list needs more Ubisoft.

Oh, and some random Nintendo trivia. Miyamoto's B-day is November 16th. Super Mario Bros (NES) was released November 17th, 1985, November 18th saw the release of the GCN in 2001 and GBC in 1998. November 19th 2006 was the Wii release date. The DS released on November 21st, 2004. Wait, the DS came out just 1 year before the 360?

All of this info was stolen from here. Well, except that part about the 360.

And I don't think it leaves them high and dry for year two. They've still got plenty of franchises to work with. I just went through the list of Nintendo development studios, looked at who works on what and how long it'd been since something was released by them.

Probably not. I'm just accustomed to Nintendo's release schedule of late where you get dollops of first party games every few months and that's all you get from them for the year. Mario, Smash, Pikmin and something from Retro is a hell of a first 3 months. Not that I'd complain if that actually happened.

Of course, they'd probably not release much else for the rest of the year

ClockworkHouse wrote:

It's just good to know that you're already thinking about your FFXV yaoi fanfic.